It’s weird - I could hear two callers on the voicemail. It’s as if RoboKiller tapped into someone else’s call.

November 18, 2020

Caller probably did not realize his speaker was left on while he conversed with others in a noisy boiler room, speaking what sounded like Hindi, before he finally spoke to me a minute later. Spoke with a thick accent, could barely understand him. Dude says he is with AT&T and that I am eligible for a 50% Directv discount along with upgrades. I have never used AT&T cell phones or Directv. That was red flag #1. Then he explains the fake offer - I have to pre-pay $260 first and he wants me to buy him a $260 Ebay gift card. That was gigantic red flag #2 lmao. These India scammers are relentless! I read a few weeks ago that India is now the new epicenter for COVID-19 infections, so their imploding economy is triggering huge tsunamis of phone scammers working in germy phone rooms trying to scam you! Every week, they pretend to be just about everyone except my father lol. And these callers are all ready to drop the f-bomb if you politely tell them to stop calling!

November 7, 2020

Someone with a very thick foreign accent claiming to be with DIRECTV

October 26, 2020

Fake AT&T DirecTV scam by madarchod criminals phoning from India This is a fake AT&T DirecTV (or Dish Network or Comcast) scam by criminals robo-dialing from India, stealing your credit card, Social Security number, and personal identity information. The scammer often asks for you by your name in order to sound like a personal phone call to gain your trust, but they are randomly auto-dialing everyone. Scammers use huge phone database listings of millions of names with phone numbers and addresses to have the autodialer display the name that is currently dialed. The India scammer pretends to be from AT&T, Dish Network, or Comcast and either tells you that your television or Internet service will be suspended due to unpaid fees, or that AT&T/Dish/Comcast is offering special sales promotions, or that they are offering a service upgrade for a small fee. The fake promotion usually offers a special low rate for a two-year subscription, but you have to prepay $200 to $500 for the first two to six months in advance, and then the scammer asks for your credit card number or asks you to pay with prepaid gift cards or debit cards. Some scammers also ask for your SSN "for verification purposes". Or the scammer says your service is going to be suspended for some fake unpaid amount and again asks for your credit card number. About 80% of North America scam calls come from India and 15% come from the Philippines. India scammers run hundreds of fraud, extortion, and money laundering scams every day such as posing as a fake pharmacy, fake Social Security officer saying your benefits are suspended, IRS officer collecting on fake unpaid back taxes, debt collector threatening you for fake unpaid bills, fake bank/financial/FedEx/UPS/DHL scams, pretending to offer fake health insurance, car warranty, student loan forgiveness, credit card and debt consolidation services, posing as Amazon to falsely say an unauthorized purchase was made to your credit card or your Prime membership was auto-debited from your bank, posing as Microsoft/Dell/HP/Apple to say your account has been hacked or they detected a virus on your computer, fake "we are refunding your money" or "your account has been auto-debited" scams, fake Google/Alexa listing and work-from-home scams, posing as an electric utility, Verizon, AT&T, or Comcast to say your service is suspended, fake solar panel and home purchase offers, fake fundraisers asking for donations, fake phone surveys, and the scammers try to steal your credit card, bank account/routing number, Social Security number, and personal information. A India call center may rotate through a fake Social Security, subscription auto-renewal, pharmacy, and credit card offer scam within one week. Philippines scammers focus more on Medicare and SSN/identity theft. Scammers use disposable VoIP phone numbers (e.g. MagicJack devices) or they spoof fake names and numbers on Caller ID. Anyone can use telecom software to phone with a fake CID name and number. Scammers spoof thousands of fake 8xx toll-free numbers. CID is useless with scam calls unless the scam asks you to phone them back. CID area codes are never the origin of scam calls since scams use spoofed CID numbers from across the US and Canada, numbers belonging to unsuspecting people, invalid area codes, and fake foreign country CID numbers; e.g. fake women crying "help me" emergency scams often spoof Mexico and Middle East CID numbers. Scammers often spoof the actual phone numbers of businesses such as Apple, Verizon, and banks to trick you into thinking the call is valid. How can you avoid being scammed by phone calls? NEVER trust any unsolicited caller who sells something (most unsolicited calls are scams so your odds of saving money are very poor); asks for your Social Security number; offers a free gift or reward; threatens you with arrest/lawsuit or says you need to reply back soon (pressure tactic); asks you to access a website, download a file, wire transfer money or buy prepaid debit/gift cards; claims suspicious activity on your account; says your subscription is being refunded or auto-renewed/auto-debited; and all pre-recorded messages. Recordings are far more likely to be malicious scams and not just telemarketer spam. All unsolicited callers with foreign accents, usually Indian or Filipino, are mostly scams. Filipino scammers tend to speak better English than Indian scammers. Filipinos speak English with a subtle accent having a slight trill. Scams often say that you inquired about a job, insurance, social security benefits, or that you previously contacted them or visited their website. A common India phone scam uses a fake Amazon recording about a purchase of an iPhone, but Amazon never robo-dials and Amazon account updates are emailed. Many banks use automated fraud alert calls to confirm a suspicious purchase, but always verify the number that the recording tells you to phone or just call the number printed on your credit card. Some scams ask for your credit card for purchase of their fake product or service. The scammer calls you back one day later to say their credit card machine is broken, so you must wire transfer the payment to them. After you have wired the money to them, they still overcharge your credit card after they change phone numbers, so they rob you twice before disappearing. Wire transfers and prepaid debit cards laundered through foreign bank accounts are untraceable. Scammers try to gain your trust by saying your name when they call, but their autodialer automatically displays your name or says your name in a recording when your number is dialed using phone databases that list millions of names and addresses. Scammers often call using an initial recording speaking English, Spanish, or Chinese that is easily generated using text-to-speech translation software to disguise the origin of their India phone room. Some speech synthesis software sound robotic, but others sound natural. To hide their foreign accents, some India scammers use non-Indians in their phone room. Scammers often use interactive voice response (IVR) robotic software that combines voice recognition with artificial intelligence, speaks English with American voices, and responds based on your replies. IVR calls begin with: "Hi, this is fake_name, I am a fake_job_title on a recorded line, can you hear me okay?"; or "Hi, this is fake_name, how are you doing today?"; or "Hello? (pause) Are you there?"; or "Hi, may I speak to your_name?" IVR quickly asks you a short question to elicit a yes/no reply so it hangs up if it encounters voicemail. IVR robots understand basic replies and yes/no answers. To test for IVR, ask "How is the weather over there?" since IVR cannot answer complex questions and it keeps talking if you interrupt it in mid-sentence. IVR usually transfers you to the scammer, but some scams entirely use IVR with the robot asking for your credit card or SSN. A common myth is IVR calls record you saying "yes" so scammers can authorize purchases just using your "yes" voice, but scammers need more than just a recorded "yes" from you - credit cards and SSN. Phone/email scams share two common traits: the CID name/number and the "From:" header on emails are easily faked, and the intent of scam calls is malicious just as file attachments and website links on scam emails are harmful. Scams snowball for many victims. If your personal/financial data are stolen, either by being scammed, visiting a malicious website, or by a previous data breach of a business server that stores your data, then your data gets sold by scammers on the dark web who will see you as fresh meat and prey on you even more. This is why some receive 40+ scam calls everyday while others get 0 to 2 calls per day. If you provide your personal information to a phone scammer, lured by fake 80%-discounted drugs or scared by fake IRS officers, you receive even more phone scams and identity theft can take years to repair. Most unsolicited calls are scams, often with an Indian accent. No other country is infested with pandemics of phone room sweatshops filled with criminals who belong to the lowest India caste and many are thieves and rapists who were serving jail time but released early due to prison overcrowding. Scammers often shout profanities at you. Just laugh at their abusive language. Google "Hindi swear words" and memorize some favorites, e.g. call him "Rundi Ka Bacha" (son of whore) or call her "Rundi Ki Bachi" (daughter of whore). Scammers ignore the National Do-Not-Call Registry; asking scammers to stop calling is useless. You do these scammers a favor by quickly hanging up. But you ruin their scams when you slowly drag them along on the phone call, give them fake personal and credit card data (16 random digits starting with 4 for Visa, 5 for MasterCard), ask them to speak louder and repeat what they said to waste their time and energy.

October 25, 2020

Idiot fell for the bot!

September 23, 2020

That Bank of America Chinese language scam. I get it twice per day from a different number for the past month

December 12, 2019